To have a really great story you need three simple things.
1. You need to have characters people will love, or can relate to. If your characters deliver little importance to people and leave them cold. The story will go unread.
2. A fresh concept or a new look at an old tale. So many stories tend to follow the same pattern, and just change around settings and characters. But they are always a cookie cutter version of a great tale. When you break that mold and tell a unique tale you achieve a great story. That is why independent authors are better at times than mainstream. Publishers think they know what the public wants, an author knows the story that needs to be told.
3. Keep the tale straight to the point. Lord knows I love Stephen King, but when he spends four pages to describe a pen it kills the tale. To me a good tale is the one that keeps on trucking until the end.
Great stories engage me so thoroughly that I tune-out everything in my surroundings and time stands still. A great story is a mind-journey; it is a vacation from the mundane.
Great stories have many qualities. First, the story begins with something familiar and the author uses the familiar to convey the reader to the strange. The main character must risk something; a threat looms somewhere. If that threat is credible and we feel compelled to read until we know all is well, then it is a great story. Great stories use the fewest words possible to tell the tale, thereby giving the readers the freedom to make the tale personal and meaningful. Great stories must have great writing, they must be coherent. They will flow seamlessly through time and space. They are like musical compositions in which each instrument, played flawlessly, enters and exits at precisely the right moment. Finally, great stories teach something, they have a message, an insight, or an affirmation about life.
A great story doesn’t necessarily start off with a bang, but builds slowly, pulling you in and creating a bond with the characters – love ’em or hate ’em. A great story is one you hate to see end and where you close the book with regret that, like a love affair, it is over. A great story stays with you months or years after you read it.
One of the best things seasoned writers have told me is the reader cannot see the actions, except through your words. Your words are the brush that paints the characters and the actions of your work. Action, passion, being true to your characters – the good and the bad aspects. All characters have to be portrayed as real, whether they are otherworldlies or human.
Having action progress in a timely manner, without rushing the progress of the story is important too.
Also, you really have to love your story and its characters. If it’s forced, it will show. You can tell a story that is loved as it is written because it will flow and be as much fun to read as it was to write.
Simply stated, you need to allow the reader to care. Notice I use the word 'allow'. You can not make a reader care. All you can do is offer your story, and the reader will see in it what he wants to see. But you have to allow him the opportunity to care by giving him something to care about. And what should the reader care about? The characters (at least some of the characters), the story, the struggle and the resolution. Of course, any good story needs a conflict (a struggle). Whether it is good guy vs. bad guy or an internal struggle, without conflict, there is nothing to capture a reader's attention. And as I said before, you must show the reader that your characters (the sympathetic or empathetic ones) are people who are worth caring about. By showing your characters as people, a reader can establish for himself whether or not he cares for the character. And of course, if a reader finds someone with which he can identify or sympathize, he will enjoy the story more.
The conflict is a little harder to pin down. Some people want to be taken away in a story to some adventure they will never see...such as a space ship or a safari or an action or war setting. Some people want a simpler conflict with which they can identify personally. With both character and conflict, allow the reader to see for themselves that they care by stating everything simply and clearly. Let the reader "be in the story". By allowing the reader to experience the story for themselves, they will care....about the main character(s)...which will lead the reader to care about the conflict...which will ultimately lead the reader to care about the resolution to the conflict. That's the whole point in writing a story. And that's the whole point in reading a story.
A great story requires memorable characters who are quirky and multidimensional and a protagonist with whom the reader can identify on some level who remains true throughout the story. It needs a strong plot that will carry it along to the climax and not collapse somewhere in the middle or fizzle at the end. Forward movement is the key to keeping the reader intrigued. Finally, a great story has good, solid writing that will sustain the reader's interest and involvement.
1. Grab the readers right from the beginning with something exciting so they will hope for more.
2. Build your characters’ traits so they will be unforgettable.
3. Keep up the pace throughout the book. That way the reader will never want to set it aside.
4. Do not spend a lot of time describing the physical scene unless it’s necessary to the plot.
5. Same with descriptions of your characters.
6. Have one hell of an ending! The reader will definitely want to read your next book.
What qualities are necessary to make a really great story?